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Hmm, well, Windows 98 SE is not more stable than Windows 2000. Linux and BSD are both valid options regaurdless of hardware. If you can use Windows 2000 you can use Linux or BSD. If I recall, you're the one who has that dip **** for a friend who gave you a Trojan, so I'd recommend Linux, as it's easier to install and use than BSD, and is still not Trojan friendly like Windows is.

I've written a bunch if tutorials for installing Linux, so go read my "Which version of Linux to use" thread so you don't ask a question everyone has seen 500 times, and then read a tutorial of mine if you want to install one of the distros I've written for, and go fromt here.

Of course, you could just read my new paper I'm working on "Reliability and tability of common OSs" :

Not finished yet but oh well:

Reliability and stability of (Mostly) Common Operating systems

Written by: GORE.

This is a text file that I hope will help others in the quest for knowledge of reliability and stability of some operating systems they may come across. This text is being written on a Linux box in XEmacs.

Throughout the text, I will refer you to websites or other documentation, to give you a place to look if you want or need more information. this will help to keep the length of this text down a little, and make it easier to read. This way, if you want more information, you can have it without me having to make this longer than others may want to read.

Introduction:

Operating Systems (Here after known as "OS") Are the software that stand between the hardware and the software of computers. Every computer now needs an OS of some sort, even though in the early days this was not even thought of.

Before OS, programmers and researchers had to write all of the programs they wanted to use, and then, had no way of saving them. If you can imagine trying to write a program, it crashing, and then reading a print out of what happened because their was no "Core Dump" in these days, then you can see why someone started to think of the concept of an OS.

An OS has a lot of responsibilities. It has to control your hardware, your programs, and of course, make it easier for coders to make new programs. My main goal with this text will be to try and teach you a few things about OS, and the stability and reliability of ones you probably come into contact with.

Now, before I get to far into detail, you may be asking (Or you may not be asking, I really don't care either way =) ) What exactly IS an OS?

Well, an OS is software. Software is nothing more than a series of instructions, in a syntax that can be understood by either the computer, or a compiler, or, for BASIC, an interpreter. The instructions basically tell the computer what to do, and how, and when.

Most users interact with a lot of different programs on a daily basis. Some common applications you may use are: An Internet web browser, an e-mail client, a word processor application like Word, Word star, and Emacs, Text editors, like Vi, Vim, Emacs (I count it as both), Note pad, Edit, and Joe, and a lot of other types of programs. These are all software too.

In a basic since, an OS is a set of programs containing instructions that coordinate all of the activities among computer hardware resources. The OS recognizes input from a keyboard or a mouse, tells the monitor how to display things and where, the printer how to, and where to, print, and is in charge of data in RAM, and saved data on the disk.

More jobs the OS must do include:

Starting the computer up into a usable state

Providing a user interface

Managing programs

Managing memory

Scheduling jobs

Configuring devices

Accessing the Internet, and or a network

Monitoring performance

And all around doing some house keeper type jobs on the computer to make it useful for more than a paper weight.

Most computers people come into contact with store the OS on the Disk, smaller computers may store the OS in ROM, or "Read Only Memory".

Not all platforms use the same OS. Mac computers for example come with MAC OS. You can get other OS to run on a Mac though, like Linux.

Mac OS will not run on PCs though. X86 based PCs however have hundreds of OS available. And for SUN hardware, Solaris and Sun OS are the main OS, but Linux can run on these types of things too.

A bit about uptime:

Uptime:

A lot of people say uptime is not important. I don't agree with this at all. A lot of hackers love having a huge uptime, because keeping a machine from rebooting for a long period of time, is like a badge of honor. Think of it like a Dr who has performed a lot of successful surgeries. It is a bragging right.

But it is more than that. From a company perspective, uptime is very important. If a machine is rebooted, or turned off for any reason, that costs money. If a file server, for example, goes down for some reason, people can't do work.

This also costs money. Uptime isn't there just so you can brag how long your machine has been up. If you work for a company in IT, let one of your machines with a good uptime get rebooted or shut down while people are trying to work, then you'll see uptime is in fact important.

Now, with Windows, everyone has probably seen a "blue screen of death". Something happens, and Windows crashes. This in itself is bad enough, but think what happens when that machine is a server.

A server machine crashing, or needing a reboot, does cost money. I am completely against running Windows as a server OS. For one thing, when a new security flaw is found in Windows, which is quite often, you have to download the update, and always have to reboot for the settings to take effect.

This is unacceptable. And when their is more than one update, you have to download each one separately. That means after rebooting, you have to take more time to download another patch, to fix what they broke with the last fix, when they tried fixing what they broke. This process can take over an hour easily.

I run Windows on one of my home machines, and you have to download a patch, install, reboot, download another, install, reboot, and it goes on and on.

In Linux and BSD, when you install a security patch, you never have to reboot unless it is a patch for the kernel itself. Which rarely happens. Also, Windows usually takes longer to come out with a patch that works.

Recently this has been less of a problem though. They have been very good on the patching.

Now in their defense, again, they have a lot more of a user base to make the patch for, but for some reason, the Linux community has one ready that works in a few hours, not months like Windows.

For example, a few months ago, a hole was found in Internet Explorer. It didn't matter if you even used it, the fact that it was on your system made you have to update it. Internet explorer comes bundled with Windows, and can't be taken off.

It took them a couple months to even get a patch ready for it. Linux and BSD also allow you to install multiple updates at the same time, and not even need a reboot after you're done. An example would be when you reformat a machine, or install an OS on it for the first time. You know the routine, you install the OS, then sit there for about 7 hours installing updates.

Windows won't let you download some updates with others, and some of them have to be downloaded by themselves. In Linux and BSD, you download every update, all at once, and then you're done.

Like I said, the only time Linux or BSD need a reboot, is when you update the kernel, or install hardware.

This is much better for a server environment, where downtime costs money, because you don't need to reboot as often. Microsoft will try getting you to believe that Windows is a better environment than anything UNIX based, but after you have had the 30th Worm/Virus outbreak of the year, you probably will start not liking Windows.

But again, in the defense of Microsoft, they can't be like UNIX, they try sometimes, but the customer base for Microsoft do not want to actually learn. They want to sit down, and have something work.

Linux and UNIX do this, but require a small amount more in knowledge, which is why Windows still dominates with the filth they put out. Microsoft products are nice, and may not actually be filth, but the company is.

Also, Microsoft are still the only company to have an OS that gets affected by Worms as often as they do. But again, to be fair about this, most people use Windows, so Virus writers target Windows so that the infection spreads as fast as possible.

Well, the malicious coders do anyway. Linux, although not the epitome of security, is still more secure than Windows. People will tell you that security is made by the admin, not the OS, and I agree with this, except for one thing:

Viruses.

Linux has had about 4 Worms that actually were big enough to realize they were there. All of them targeted Red Hat Linux, and for the most part, did nothing more than install a patch for the worm, and go to another machine....Users really didn't need to install the patch that allowed this to happen, as the person who coded the Worm obviously had a sense of humor about security.

The worst Linux virus you are likely to ever see is:

To: SomeDude

From: Another Dude

Subject: Linux Virii!

This virus works on the honor system:

If you're running any variant of UNIX or Linux, please forward this to everyone you know, and delete a bunch of your files at random.

Thanks for your cooperation.

As you can see, this is pretty bad. It can delete files from your HD...Well actually it would be you deleting them out of pity.

One Linux virus that actually exists though, is called "W32/Lindose".

Not something you're likely to see if you do as my Linux install tutorials say, and delete Windows. The only way this virus can do anything, is if you have your Linux partition mounted in Windows, so the virus can be run from it.

Viruses can cause downtime just like any other pain in the neck security flaw. This is another reason I won't use Windows for a server.

If you need to use Windows for a Desktop, I would recommend adhering to the following:

When you turn the machine on, use Windows update to make sure you have all patches installed.

After you have finished updating, check Windows update again. Sometimes when you install an update, you will notice there are now more updates than when you didn't have a certain update installed. This goes back to my complaint about fixing what they broke with the last patch they released to fix what they broke before.

After you have this all competed, update your anti virus software to make sure you have all bug fixes, and the newest .DAT files to check for viruses.

After you have done this, update your firewall software to make sure you are protected against new attacks.

At this point you should have Windows completely updated, your anti virus updated, and your firewall updated. Now it's time to make sure you have Windows Media Player updated. Windows Media Player, although nice, is not exactly secure either.

What I am trying to say, is when you turn your machine on, check for updates for the software you have. After you have finished updates and reboots, do a scan with your anti virus products.

Another thing you should be doing after you have scanned everything, is to open up Ad Aware; Which any self respecting Windows computer user would have installed. After you have it open, update the reference file, and do a scan with that.

UNIX hardware may cost a bit more, but it's worth it. Also, Linux and BSD do NOT need expensive hardware. The Newest version of Linux, will still run on a 386. A 386 was what people who ran DOS used. The newest versions of Windows need a lot more than that.

Also, Linux and BSD can be ran on 8 MB of RAM. Windows XP needs at least 128. If you are about to toss out that 486 you don't use anymore, how about you instead install Linux or BSD on it? Learning UNIX is a joy, and that 386 will actually make a great router or firewall.

You can take a 386 and turn it into a router or firewall with Linux or BSD. They both come with the programs needed to make it act as a router with very good firewall capabilities.

Again, I don't want to come off as someone who does not like using Windows. I do use Windows, and I do like the following:

-Windows NT

-Windows 98

-Windows 2000

-Windows XP

-Windows Server 2003 (Personal Favorite)

So how stable is Linux and BSD?

Well, I for one had 53 days of uptime on my machine, before a power outage took it down. The top 50 up-times of web servers on the Internet as of yesterday, are all running BSD. These machines have up times of over 1,780 days. That is about 5 years in case you want to know.

Those machines have been running for 5 years without a reboot, as a server.

And now for an update to this:

I recently had 66 days of uptime on my SUSE Linux 8.2 Professional machine.

A Windows 2000 machine was ONCE on the list with 900 days uptime. I will give Windows 2000 it's do, as it is fairly stable, but that machine probably had NO patches installed on it at all, as patches need a reboot.

I would rather reboot because I am installing a security patch, than be rebooting because my machine got owned and I have to take it down.

All in all, you would most likely have better success keeping a UNIX based Operating system up for long periods of time. DOS is another stable OS, but it is still very limited in capabilities.

So, when it comes down to it, Linux and BSD are MUCH better at being a server OS than most anything else.

The Kernel:

The Kernel of an OS is the very core of the OS itself. the Kernel manages memory, devices, the computer's clock, starts applications, and assigns the computer's resources.

The Kernel is also memory resident. It remains in memory while the computer is on.

When using an OS, the two most common ways of communicating with it as to what you want to do, are through a GUI (Graphical User Interface), which Windows XP uses almost exclusively, and a CLI (Command Line Interface).

The GUI can be nice to get common things done fast, but the command line is the best way to perform advanced tasks.

Micro Kernels:

Micro Kernels are not exactly my idea of good. To me they seem like a pain. The Gnu/Hurd project runs ons the Mach Micro Kernel, and from listening to Richard Stallman talk about it, it sounded like nothing more than a waste of time to me.

A bunch of little "Servers" communicate back and forth with each other, and if you break even one, you may have to redo your whole system, because you have to figure out which one broke, and when you fix it, be careful that you don't break another one that it talks to too.

Picture a card house. That is a Micro Kernel. Now, to simulate how I feel, smash it with a brick. Now put it back together the EXACT way it was before the whack with a brick.

Monolithic Kernels, unlike Micro Kernels, are one whole entity. Kernels are not exactly what I do for a living, but I've read about them and listened to Richard Stallman talk about them about 3 times. To me it seems Monolithic Kernels are a much better idea, as I don't like the idea of my machine using a bunch of "Servers" for the Kernel itself.

Running an FTP, Apache, or SSH server is fine, but when it comes to a Kernel, no. Of course this is an opinion, but still, how many people can actually say a Micro Kernel sounds good?

Different types of OS:

Not all OS are the same. Most you are likely to come across may be very similar in what they do, but that doesn't mean they are all a like. Some OS are for servers, some are meant to be clients, some are single tasking single user, and some are embedded.

For the most post, I will be discussing mainly server and client and desktop OS. Embedded OS are not something I use much.

DOS:

The best known single user single tasking OS is without a doubt DOS. DOS stands for two things:

Disk Operating System

Dirty Operating System

In 1981, IBM was coming out with a Personal Computer. They needed an OS to run on this "PC", and thankfully IBM succeeded with the PC, as we all now have a computer in our homes.

They went to Microsoft for an OS, and Microsoft lied and said they had an OS for the PC. They found a clone of Digital Researche's CP/M OS written by Tim Patterson of Seattle Computer Products called QDOS (Quick Dirty Operating system).

Microsoft bought it cheaply, and changed the name to MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating system). In some original copies, you could actually find the real name of it, as Microsoft had left some in, which I would guess was just a mistake when they looked for everything to change in it.

DOS seemed like the answer to IBM needing an OS. It was small, didn't take up much space, and would work without a Hard Disk. The original PC had no Hard Disk anyway. They changed the name to PC-DOS for IBM, named after DOS/360, an OS of the mid 60's. Microsoft of course called it's own version MS-DOS.

This was around the same time that BSD was being created too.

DOS is a fairly stable OS. Most versions of course allow you to only do one thing at a time, but IBM has a version of DOS that came out around the year 2,000 that actually can multi task.

As for security, DOS is great...To an extent. I haven't heard of many DOS users getting owned, as it can't handle another user to break in. This would in theory point to DOS actually being secure network wise.

It can't handle more than one user, and can't handle more than one application at a time, so that would limit what could be done to it remotely. Remote access is possible in DOS though. Remote access tools were built for it, and a lot of applications that run in DOS, run much faster and much better than their Windows counterparts.

As I said, the security of DOS in a network being great because of it only being able to handle one user, and one application at a time, is only a theory of mine. Maybe one day I will actually test it and see how good it can hold up.

Even though it has age showing, DOS is still very much in use. Any Hacker worth his salt knows DOS.

Anyone who uses Windows should also know DOS inside and out, as most advanced tasks would require opening a DOS command prompt.

The most well know OS in this category is without a doubt Windows. For a desktop, Windows is fine, but as for stability and reliability, they have had a less than perfect track record.

Windows:

Windows 3.X

Windows 3.X was decent. It was fairly fast, and was simple. It was a bit reliable, heh, much more than Windows 95. And it was faster than 95. This OS is not in in use much anymore today, as support was dropped for it long ago, and it wouldn't be able to handle the new features that people have come to expect out of a modern OS. If you have older hardware lying around and don't want to use Linux for some reason, this could still be a valid option.

The odd thing about this, is if you have a 486 running DOS, and have Windows 3.1 installed on it, it will boot up, and respond faster, than a 3.06 GHz processor with Windows XP will.

I have actually seen this, and I was shocked to see how fast it boost up. And when you realise the processor on a 486 is so much slower, it kind of makes you wonder. But again, being fair, Windows XP has A LOT more to it than Windows 3.1 does, and also, Windows XP has a lot more running.

Well, I am going to make this into another category. It was basically part of the 3.x line. Windows 3.x could be added to a network, but Windows for Work-groups made the task much easier to perform.

Windows for Work-groups 3.11:

This was a pretty good upgrade compared to Windows for Work-groups 3.1, which added 32 bit file access, fax capabilities, and higher performance. This was of course back when Microsoft released updates for windows to add new features, not because they had found some un-fixable security hole.

There were actually 4 releases of Windows 3.1x :

Windows 3.1 : The first release of Windows 3.1x.

Windows 3.1 for Work groups.

Windows 3.11.

Windows 3.11 for Work-groups.

For Windows 3.1 to use networking features, a DOS NIC driver, protocol, and client software had to be provided. And as networking software became feature rich, the size of the client software resident in the 640K portion of RAM grew to the point that many applications would not run do to insufficient free real mode RAM.

Windows for Work-groups solves this problem by adding protected mode network support. Rather than loading the drivers in the 640K segment, The Windows networking software loads as .386 files. (VxD files).

Of course this means as soon as you went back to DOS, you lost the network. ( Some of the text you just read about Windows for Work-groups was NOT stolen, but learned by me from http://www.toastytech.com/guis/win311.html I did not just copy and paste this, but this stuff came out LONG before I had a computer, and some of it when I was in diapers. I found this site very informative, so I'm going to give some credit for THIS Windows 3.x section to them, as I learned a lot of it there.)

On a side note, to see what the FIRST version of Microsoft Word looked like running on Windows 1.0 look here:

This is what happened when you pressed CTRL ALT DELETE.... The Sodding paper clip strikes again in pop up window form...It appears that you are grossly disgusted with Windows, would you like me to reboot the system?????????? LOL. This version of clippy seemed a little coked up and excited.

Windows NT 3.51 running new applications like Mozilla...And somehow working a little.

Windows 95 -

Windows 95 is great for doing basic tasks like surfing the Internet, and sending email. That is about where it stops though too. It is very unreliable, and for stability in Windows 95, think WTC AFTER the planes. Both crashed bad.

I used Windows 95 For about 6 months when I got my first computer. Even though Windows ME was about to be released, my first computer came with 95. It was from my uncle, and I learned quite a bit from it.

Windows 95 is not in much use anymore, because it is not only no longer supported, but unstable to the point that people would probably rather use DOS. But, you can find a few places that still use it. If had a few extra boxes I myself would install it again. It's not a resource hog, but it still has use in my opinion, as most OS do.

Windows 98 -

Windows 98 was an update to Windows 95 where some bugs were fixed, and the Internet was "integrated" into the OS...Supposedly. Windows 98 was decent though. It was more stable than 95, and more stable than the next home user OS, Windows ME.

Windows 98 SE was probably the best for gaming until Windows XP home came out. And even then some games won't run on XP, so the ultimate gaming machine would have to have 98SE for the games to all run correctly.

I can't say much bad about Windows 98 SE, because quite honestly, I have hardly ever had problems with it. It rarely crashed on me, and all the problems people report with it, hardly ever happened to me. Windows 98 SE can be used easily, and if you know what you're doing, and don't install "Dodgy" software on it, you can very easily keep a good uptime on it.

Windows 98 for stability is not to bad. Don't expect it to stay crisp after about a day or two though. But it can be up for a month or more if you know what you're doing.

Windows NT was something that came out just before 95. I have no idea why they released 95 when NT was already there. NT was much better, even though it needed more resources.

NT machines have been known to stay up over a year without a reboot, but according to a Microsoft manual that no longer exists, you are supposed to reboot once a month for the memory leaks it has spilling out.

Microsoft took this tip off the web site, but it is quite funny. As I am writing this on my Linux box, I have 58 days of uptime, and I'm not planning on rebooting yet. That's the problem with Linux, you don't need to reboot so you may have to buy a better power supply.

I can't say I don't like Windows NT though. It was the first OS to have NTFS (Shocking, I know), and it is decent for being an old OS. It is somewhat dated now, but I would rather run it than nothing at all.

Windows NT has been around long enough that most of the bugs that are in it have had time to be found and fixed. Now if Microsoft would actually support it, it would be great.

All in all Windows NT is fairly decent, but no longer supported. The people at Microsoft dropped support for it a while back....And extended support for Windows 98.

From a business perspective, this was a very smart move, because a lot of people still use it, but personally, I think NT is better, and would rather have the nice NT, still supported.

Windows 2000 -

Windows 2000 was the update to NT. It was based on NT, but had the new features NT was missing because of age. A lot happened between when NT came out and when 2000 came out, so 2000 is usually a little better if you want newer options.

Windows 2000 is fairly stable. The Net-craft site showing the top 50 up-times once had a Windows 2000 box with 900 days of uptime on it. Not bad at all. Windows 2000 is still in wide use today, and Hotmail.com seems to be running it too.

I have used Windows 2000 Professional enough to know I can run it with confidence. Windows 2000 is all around a good OS if you actually take the time to learn it correctly. But few do.

Most people who use a computer, and don't make a career or hobby out of it, generally don't want to take time learning an OS, but those who do, usually really like windows 2000.

I just recently installed Windows 2000 on a new machine to see how it would work out. The Video card, NIC, and Sound Card in this machine are all integrated, and I had no drivers for them, and Windows 2000 didn;t work well on it obviously.

The NIC couldn't be used, and the video card gave me a bad resolution, and it was in 8 bit mode. So if you have a new machine that you want to use with windows 2000, make sure you have drivers in hand. Intagrated hardware is a curse in my opinion, but it is used a lot, so if you aren't sure if you have drivers, try and download them before installing.

Windows XP -

Windows XP comes in two forms mainly, and a third and fourth known as Windows XP for Tablet PCs, and Windows XP Media Center edition. They are basically XP with some added features to run on the machines they were designed for.

The other two main versions are Windows XP Home edition, and Windows XP Pro.

Windows XP Home edition is pretty much the one made for home use, and XP Pro was the update to Windows 2000 Professional. Huge difference huh?

Windows XP home is what I use at home, and I use XP pro at school. I've messed with both a fair amount, and from what I can tell, XP Pro's main difference is an extra $100.00 Price tag, and about 3 networking tools you could download anyway.

Oh, and of course XP Pro has encryption built in...Another feature you can download.

XP seems to mainly be a mix of Windows ME and Windows NT/2000. It is very stable, and also has a very good way with multimedia. Kind of like the best from both worlds. A lot of people have said XP was very insecure.

I believe an OS is as secure as you make it to be. Pooh Sun Tzu proved this theory with a couple of tests he shared on Anti Online, proving XP more secure than anyone had ever given it credit for.

I think Pooh Sun Tzu should be given a fair amount of credit for actually taking the time to learn Windows XP more than others have, and for teaching everyone that it can in fact be secured.

For Windows XP, it is the only version of Windows I have right now running. I have it on a box that came with it, and I just never took it off as I need it for school, and use it for a few other things too.

For stability, XP is an amazing OS compared to other OS Microsoft released. It is very stable, and I have yet to have to reboot unless I was installing something that required it... Or because I was worried about it over heating.

I've had XP running for quite a while without any problems, although after about a week some games would start to lag until I rebooted. This is still better than other OS Microsoft has released though.

XP does have a bit of a resources fetish though. You should have at the very least 256 MB of RAM, and a decent processor to run it. I personally have the XP box I talked about a bit earlier, and it runs great. It has 512 MB RAM, a 2.13 GHz AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Processor, and a 120 GB HD. This is a great machine for XP, as it has room to use.

If you can give it a lot of resources to play in, you should have no real problems there.

Windows server 2003 -

This right here, in my opinion, is one of the fastest, and best OS they have ever released. I started playing with it on a box here at home, and right away noticed a speed increase.

It seems to load applications much faster than previous versions of Windows could. Windows Server 2003 is amazing. I think Microsoft should take out all of the server software, and release it as a client version. It's fast, good to use, stable, easy to work with, and the install is easy, very painless to set up, and all around very good.

If you did need Windows as a server OS, I would recommend this one. This, and XP, are what I use at home. Well, that and Windows 2000 Professional. My other boxes all run Linux or BSD.

It seems very stable. I haven't had a problem with it at all.

Not much else to really say about it, as it is based on Windows 2000, so is very similar, but in my opinion, much better. Much better to the extent that I would buy it.

The install also goes a lot more smoothly than other versions.

I actually like it. They really should make a desktop version of it. I'd use it.

Are other Operating systems more secure than Windows?

Well, this is a question a lot of people ask, but hardly any know the answer to. The answer really depends on what you know how to do. If you know Windows very well, then switching to Linux may be a bit odd, and securing it is different in a few ways, so this may not be the best option. But if you are willing to learn, UNIX systems can be secured beyond standards.

I will cut this discussion down to only Linux, and BSD, because their are not very many homes that have any other versions of UNIX in them. Linux and BSD are both free to download and use. Or you can borrow a CD with Linux or BSD on it from a friend and copy it. This is all legal.

It IS freely available, but may cost you an Internet connection to download it, or maybe you could go to a school and download it their. The fact is, you can get it easy.

A lot of people think of BSD and Linux, and think "this is free, it must suck". It's sad people believe that. Linux and BSD are two of the most stable, reliable Operating systems in the world.

Open BSD is considered the most secure Operating system in the world, it is also freely available.

Yahoo.com runs on Free BSD, and a bunch of companies use Linux. They are all very stable. I have so far only seen a core dump on my Linux boxes one time. A core dump would be like a Windows blue screen of death, but you don't usually have to reboot from it, which is another strong point.

Also, Linux and BSD are immune to viruses. You have to be stupid enough to load one as root to make it do anything.

So, with it being free to get, immune to viruses and worms that spread across Windows boxes, and being stable as a brick wall; Why would anyone use something else?

Well, that is easily answered. People are used to Windows. At school you are taught to use Windows, and no one ever wants to learn anything else. Mac users are in a class all their own. Weirdos.

But I for one use Linux and BSD at home. This document is being typed on a Linux box in Vi. Linux comes with over 4,000 tools for everything from coding, to professional office suites, and even image editing, and a lot more.

The Matrix, for example, was MADE on Free BSD machines.

Linux and Free BSD power a lot of movies.

The Linux and BSD kernels both come with built in security. In short, yes, Linux and BSD can be much more secure than Windows, but you have to actually get off your butt and try. The way I mean they can be more secure, is the way Worms and Viruses rarely affect them, they have built in firewall capabilities, and they are stable.

Theoretical example:

Someone is updating a Windows box, and getting ready to reboot, well, this would normally be fine, but, what if someone inside the company wanted to gain access to the server? Well, a simple DDOS attack would stop the machine, or at least make it seem like it stopped. It would be lagging down to a crawl, and not be able to finish the update in time to stop the real attack about to occur, because the patch hadn't been installed, because the machine hadn't yet been rebooted.

Well, on Linux, the patch is installed, and that's usually it unless you're upgrading Apache, and then you have to do the oh so hard job of typing "Apachectl start". this takes less time than rebooting, and in this example, could stop an attack, as the update was installed beforehand.

Now, being fair, with Windows, the update would be very simple, so that way an MCSE can can do it too. Clicking on Windows Update and downloading patches should be easy, and for some reason, a bunch of people just do not pull this off.

I've heard of many attacks, and almost all of them were because someone just doesn't know how to update.

BeOS is an OS that is unlike any other. I have a history with BeOS that I don't have with any other OS other than Windows 95 as it was my first. BeOS was hailed the Media OS, and after using it a few times, I cans ay it was very good at this.

Another good thing BeOS brought to the table was the fact that it was a new OS, and had no legacy backwards compatibility problems that made it "have" to adhere to something like Windows does with DOS. It was a great begining.

BeOS also offered a Bash shell, and scripting, but you could choose how you wanted to interact with the OS. The command line didn't reply on the GUI, and the GUI didn't need the command line. You could use either.

The people who founded BeOS were all ex-Apple employees. In early 1990, the President of Apple's products division, Jean-Louis, decided he was ready to leave Apple, and make his next move.

One of the things he thought about, was buying CompuServe. I, along with a few others I'm sure, am happy he did not. The BeBox he created instead, was so much better.

In 1991, BeOS design was started, and not long after, BeOS was going smooothly, and was almost ready to be shown off. The reason an Apple port happened so quickly, was because Apple told BeOS that they had no business being at the Mac expo, as BeOS not only was a competitor, but also had nothing to do with Mac OS.

In about 6 weeks, Be OS was riding Macs. I've read a lot about the people who worked on Be OS, and they seem like the nicest people. BeOS was also one of the few OS that didn't try starting any "fights". They didn't try bashing any other OS, and were happy with being nothing but a "Dual booted" OS.

Be OS is written about 95% in C. The rest is in Assembler for speed. One of the things that really made me want to try BeOS out for the first time, was the fact that it was very stable.

I have used it a while, and have yet to ever have a freeze, crash, or lag. Even getting multiple high graphic programs running doesn't slow it down. A lot of people say BeOS is not very good, but I personally like it a lot.

BeOS was very good with memory protection too, and if something froze or crashed, you refreshed that part, and kept going. Also, on a Pentium 2 or so machine, BeOS boots in 20 seconds. Windows ME can supposedly do this, but unlike Windows ME, 20 seconds later, BeOS is still running.

The GUI is really cool looking I think. The whole design of the OS over all is amazing, a work of art. You can kind of tell the people who amde it were almost completly made up of ex-Apple employees, but they don't copy anything.

If you can imagine the ease of use, stability, and media power of Windows, Mac, and Linux all in one OS, you can imagine what BeOS is like. BeOS does have a web server, but it's not a server OS. It's made for the desktop, or a workstation, not a server. But it is stable enough to use a lot.

Be OS on the desktop is great, and a number of applications are still on the internet for it.

BeOS uses BFS as the file system, which is a fast and stable File System in my experiance.

Stability in BeOS is very good. I've said it before, I've never seen BeOS crash, hang, or lag even.

The User Interface for BeOS, looks a lot like AntiOnline.com used to look. Almost exactly like it.

The Great Grand Father of all modern OS. I'm sort of lost for words as to what to say really. UNIX was started in the 1960's by Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie, when they were working in Bell Labs, a subsidary of AT&T. They made it to work on not very powerful machines, and to be fast.

The file System was first called the "Fast File System" and is really known by many as "UFS" or "UNIX File System".

openBSD? lol im sorry...but whats that? anyways...um...i think that i might upgrade to XP because this comp was originally made for XP, haha but i reformatted it for 2000pro from some reason..dont ask my why....but personally i think that windows 98 crashes a lot...lol well mine did...haha not too sure about you guys...but mine....wel...yea i tends to crash everytime i used it...i really dont know why....:S

I just read from gore....thank for the help, and nice paper, eh...im never used linux, but i have a friend who does maybe i can ask him (not the one from the sub7 incident) lol if i do install linux, but yea im gonna look up your tutorials on linux too, thankz

I don't want to get into a what's stable debate, so I'm going to avoid that discussion. Although I've worked every OS I've ever used damn hard and seldom had crashes, even with Win95 and WinME.

Anyways, you've mentioned that you may look into Linux and that's the reason for my post. I wanted to tell you not to only consider the more popular Linux distrobutions. If you ask for suggestions you'll get the answer look around the forums, you'll also get suggestions for the bigger distrobutions. While they may be better if you're new because you'll find more support, sometimes the smaller ones are more fun to work with/play with. You'll hear RedHat, Fedora, Slackware, Debian, SuSE, Mandrake and they all have their ups and downs. If Microburn posts you'll hear about ArchLinux which also has it's benefits. However no one will tell you to try out CollegeLinux, VectorLinux, LormaLinux, Libranet Linux, etc. These distrobutions are all very nice and full features. Libranet is debian based and very nice. VectorLinux is slackware based and also very nice. Lorma boasts that it'll play several Win32 games directly off the install without much additional configuration and CollegeLinux was created for students by students as a learning tool.

Anyways, ultimately choose the OS you feel most comfortable with and know the best, or are willing to learn about, it'll be the most stable for you. Also look at your needs, wants, and desires... they'll lead you to the right OS

Peace,
HT

IT Blog: .:Computer Defense:.PnCHd (Pronounced Pinched): Acronym - Point 'n Click Hacked. As in: "That website was pinched" or "The skiddie pinched my computer because I forgot to patch".

thank you htregz, but for now i decided to make my OS windows 2000pro, because i aready been using it for a while now, but i will be experimenting with linux on my other computer...after reading some stuff about them here. although right now i am currently have a problem with windows2000 after reformatting it, i posted a new thread on it, it can be found under hardware and the title is "USB memory key help", any help with that would be much appriciated....because mainly i really need it lol. anyways please help out anyone reading this because i aready have about 9 views with no replys......

Same here, oh and damn straight But seriously, if you want a stable OS you should look into OpenBSD. I find it reliable, stable, and perform's better than any OS I've worked with.

damn straight :-D

Originally posted here by .:front2back:. Go with win98 you carn't go wrong, they are good for getting some good uptime on, plus gaming. And i haven't been able to get my win98 box to crash so i'd say it's pretty stable..

cheers
f2b:.

I don't know if i could ever consider an operating system that CRASHED on its public debut STABLE especially since i have used it and within an hour after i got it up and running and patched i got a BSOD (granted, i am very hard on my machines)

Because i am so hard on my machines i say go with either open bsd (my first choice) or windows xp, which just gets "grumpy" with me from time to time (slows down, drivers dissappear, programs stop working) but never seems to crash